


Kids

by alitbitmoody



Series: How to Lie [4]
Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: (considering they're both imprisoned), Blink And You Miss It Slash, Children, Drabble, During the Time Skip, Gen, M/M, Mentioned past child abduction, Prison
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-06-26
Updated: 2019-06-26
Packaged: 2020-05-20 09:57:12
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 400
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19374373
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alitbitmoody/pseuds/alitbitmoody
Summary: Barbara Jr. asks Oswald a question.





	Kids

"Do you have kids?"

The question shouldn't surprise him. Not when the last half hour of this month’s visit with Barbara Jr. has been devoted to coloring and news of her stepmother's expanding zygote. Oswald has to explain that word and privately claims the tiny human's resultant glee as a victory against straight-laced adults everywhere. She draws the members of her growing family while Uncle Oswald sketches a Regency tailcoat, a cutaway collar, a continental cross...

The question, posed with wide guileless eyes, is enough to tighten his grip on the colored pencil, purple shading stilled on the page. His pause is just a little too long to escape the older Barbara's notice, pencil strokes similarly stalled on her side of the table in the prison visiting room. Genuine shock; a rarity. He ignores it in favor of maintaining eye contact with his goddaughter; smiles, opts for radical honesty. 

"My son is sixteen." 

The questions that follow (“Where is he? Is he as tall as you? What color are his eyes?”) are enthusiastic, charming, easily diverted now that he’s prepared for them. 

\--

Barbara Sr. waits until her daughter is well into another masterpiece before passing a note across the table. 

_ The boy at the bridge?  _

It's sheer dumb luck that none of them ever bothered to learn Martín's name. Still, Oswald can't help but be perturbed on his child's behalf (foster child, adopted child, a second-parent adoption delayed indefinitely for an emergency guardianship). Barbara's face is uncharacteristically solemn when he finally glances up and he can almost see the numbers adding up in her head -- the boy she and Tabitha kidnapped was eight years old. Barbara Jr. will be six next month. A reunification baby -- always found, never lost.

Barbara's not Jim -- who stumbles into more clues than he divines and has the adrenaline-driven, rapidly-associative brain built to draw relevant connections when it suits. She's not Ed -- meticulous and curious with an eidetic memory, but a limited ability to read other people's feelings or how they relate to the larger picture outside of personal utility. Like Oswald, she’s made of emotions and uses those to guide her in darkness. Giving her nothing is the same as giving her everything. So, in the interest of preserving what he can, he strikes through her question and writes two short answers above it. 

_ Yes.  _

And:

_ Do be careful -- he has a long memory. _

**Author's Note:**

> Given that we don't see a second child in the _Gotham_ finale (and given that James Gordon Jr. grows up to be a psychopath in the comics), the other "kid" mentioned in the background here is arguably headed for a tragedy that equals or surpasses Martín's separation from Oswald and Edward. Few happy families in Gotham and fewer happy endings.
> 
> There's room for interpretation, but my guess is Martín's emergency guardianship was under Olga. If Robin Lord Taylor says she has Oswald's dog, I have to believe she'd be the one caring for his son.


End file.
